


Dropping So Quickly

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Mary Poppins References, Post-Episode: 2017 Xmas Twice Upon A Time, Regeneration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-10-21 08:07:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20690237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: Finding herself plummeting to Earth, the Doctor wishes for a saviour. What she gets is her best enemy, and a purple parasol.





	Dropping So Quickly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ileolai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ileolai/gifts).

> This is based on [this](https://ileolai.tumblr.com/post/176621721389) wonderful piece of fanart that crossed my dash some considerable time ago.

The Doctor didn’t know exactly _why _the TARDIS had chosen this particular moment to pull this little stunt. Was it the gender thing, perhaps? Was it some kind of sulk following her absolute, stubborn, heartfelt refusal to regenerate (not that that had ended well, given, well… the current situation)? Was it the perceived abandonment of her time machine for several decades-but-not-decades on the Mondasian ship?

Or was it, perhaps, the fact that she’d done the one thing she’d always sworn not to do again? After the last three regenerations, her ship had been crystal clear in its feelings towards her regenerating inside the console room. It was messy, it was dangerous, it caused untold amounts of destruction, and they usually ended up crashing in the moments that follow. There was often fire involved, and smoke, and copious amounts of damage to the console itself, which took weeks to repair and further weeks of grovelling to attempt to overcome. Even before the particularly memorable experience following her regeneration into the gangly, bow-tie-wearing version of herself that first met little Amelia Pond, during which the swimming pool had found itself in the library, the TARDIS had been _decidedly _frosty about regeneration. At least the change into her Scottish form had been relatively low on chaos, thanks to Clara’s reassuring presence at her side. There’d been no flames or inferno then… or, she corrected herself, not at first anyway. Not until they’d been swallowed by a dinosaur and coughed up beside the Thames in Victorian London. Then there had been smoke, and fire, and an extremely sulky companion to deal with.

No moody companion this time.

The thought was galling, and had she not been plummeting through space, she might have dedicated more time and energy towards ruminating on what, precisely, that meant for her future. As it was, all she knew was that she was alone – much was crystal clear – but at least Bill wasn’t dead. Or maybe she was dead; honestly, Schrödinger had barely scratched the surface with his maybe-dead cat. She should go and compare notes with him someday. Schrödinger’s Cat and Theta Sigma’s Lesbian. 

As it was, the wind whipped past her with each passing metre she fell, chilling her to the bone and blowing her hair into her face so stingingly that she could barely see. Under usual circumstances, she’d have summoned the TARDIS – she’d done so before, after all, to great effect – but now that her ship was sulking, she wasn’t entirely sure what to do, and these were decidedly _not _usual circumstances. There was also the slightly pressing question of what would happen when she hit the ground and whether she’d reached a high enough velocity to cause an impact crater. Would her recent regeneration work in her favour? Or would UNIT have to come and scrape pulverised Time Lord – Lady, she corrected, feeling a little thrill at the strangeness of the term – off whatever it was that she landed on? She hoped to high hell that it wasn’t a city; she considered trying to turn around and look, but that would only cause undue concern, and so she fixed her eyes on the patch of space above her where her time machine had last been, and kept falling with a silent cry. The scream wasn’t entirely voluntary, but it seemed necessary – she’d always thought she’d like to go out fighting, and in the absence of anything to actually fight, shouting seemed like a suitably tokenistic alternative form of aggression, even if nothing and nobody could hear her. 

Well. Nothing and nobody _at __first_.

Then, out of nowhere, there was a soft _pop _and then a horribly familiar figure in purple appeared out of nowhere, held aloft in mid-air by an overly frilly parasol in the distinct style of Mary Poppins. Not that the Doctor had any intention of alluding to this verbally; Missy was notoriously touchy about the subject.

“Missy!” she managed to exclaim; the words stolen from her mouth by the howling wind. “What-” 

“Here I come to save the day,” Missy trilled sweetly, managing to somehow drift slowly and elegantly downwards while keeping pace with the Doctor. She reached out one hand with a saccharine smile, and the Doctor reached for it gratefully, her momentum immediately lessening as the parasol took their combined weight and she held onto Missy as tightly as she could manage.

‘There?” Missy continued brightly, affixing her with what was approaching a warm smile. “Isn’t that so much-” 

There was an odd _fwoop _sound, and Missy swore magnificently and loudly in Gallifreyan as they began to hurtle downwards again. 

“Missy-” the Doctor began, struggling to look around as her old friend wrapped her arms around her, clinging onto her like a lifeline. “What…”

Managing to look up, the Doctor realised that the umbrella they had both been depending on had turned itself inside out, apparently unable or unwilling to hold the combined weight of two Time Ladies. It had given up the ghost, and now nothing was impeding their freefall through the atmosphere. 

“You have to be joking,” the Doctor said in horror, unable to stifle a groan of bemusement. “This thing has a weight limit?!” 

“It’s a work in progress, alright?” Missy snapped, affixing the Doctor with a haughty stare. “I was a bit busy saving your life to think about practicalities.”

“Didn’t you install a mass-eliminating circuit?” 

“Obviously _not_,” Missy rolled her eyes theatrically. “Or we wouldn’t be snuggled up together and plummeting to our deaths.” 

“Well, why didn’t you?!” 

“Because I wasn’t bargaining on having to save your sorry behind from splattering all over Sheffield,” Missy tutted. “We’re going to make a terrible mess. Honestly, if you hadn’t dragged us out on some silly road trip in the first place, insisting on taking the pets with us and all, then we wouldn’t be in this position, would we sweetie?” 

“Don’t call me that. And don’t call them that.”

“Well, they were your pets. Very nice ones, too.” 

“And now they’re both…” the Doctor trailed off, unable to speak the words aloud. “And it’s your fault.” 

“Yes, alright,” Missy rolled her eyes again. “Let’s not spoil this lovely shared moment with nasty things before we go splat, hm? This isn’t my fault. You’re the one who wanted to take me on a date and invited Comic Relief and Exposition along to third wheel.” 

“So this is _my _fault?!” 

“Exactly,” Missy purred, as though pleased that the Doctor had caught on. “And then you had to… what, go and get yourself shot, I suppose? And regenerate, like a tit?” 

“I didn’t…”

“And now, let me guess, the TARDIS is sulking, so she tipped you out?” 

“Yes, alright,” the Doctor muttered sourly. “Let’s not go on about it, alright?” 

“Oh I will go on about it. A lot,” Missy grinned, no longer able to conceal her girlish glee. “But first…” 

She pressed something on her wrist and they zapped out of the lower atmosphere, reappearing with a _pop _in a much, much more concerning locale. The Doctor looked down at the ground, now only a couple of hundred metres away, and let out another shriek. There may have been some cursing in Gallifreyan, but there was no one around to hear it except Missy, so in the Doctor’s view, it didn’t count. 

“Missy, how is this-”

“Bye!” Missy exclaimed, letting go of the Doctor and vanishing. 

Before the Doctor could shout or swear again or do anything, she was falling.

There was a crash. 

There was pain, and the half-formed thought that asked why, precisely, Missy had abandoned her to her fate. 

And then there was screaming of a distinctly human variety, and as though on autopilot, the Doctor leapt into action.


End file.
